It is all about the prayer

After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,
the LORD God called to the man

and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”

 

This past couple of months we have been reflecting on The Confessions of St. Augustine.  Augustine, although aware of his sinfulness, does not attempt to hide himself from God like Adam, but rather lays bare his most intimate self.  He does so,  not primarily for his readers, but for God to whom his prayer text is directed.  Augustine permits us to overhear his prayer in the same way that Christ permits us to overhear the prayer of the Pharisee and Tax-collector in Luke.  He writes down his Confessions to the same end that Christ relates his parable —to reveal just how the kingdom is coming about in his time and ours.   It's all about the prayer. 

Augustine begins with, and sustains throughout the confessions, a profound sense of repentance.  The Mass maintains the same attitude, beginning with the Kyrie right through to the reception of communion where we say, "Lord I am not worthy to receive you."  But repentance is not enough. We need hope for the future. God expresses his hope for us  in the incarnation of his son, the Word made flesh. At the heart of the Mass we hear spoken  the marriage vows of Christ with his Church-- “this is my body which will be given up for you” and “this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all that sins might be forgiven.”  Those in the congregation who constitute the spouse of Christ,  each in their own way, commits his or her body to this marriage -- sometimes to be born out in martyrdom but mostly to be born out in the everyday crosses and celebrations of life, but always born out in chastity.